Consumer Reports on Thursday released its 2024 brand reliability rankings, and Subaru has claimed the top spot, dethroning brand reliability standard-bearers Toyota and its luxury sibling Lexus. This is a turning point in automotive reliability by the numbers, the data comes from about 300,000 vehicles sold from 2000 to 2025.
These rankings come from Consumer Reports, whose determinations come from a variety of factors: owner satisfaction, safety ratings, expected reliability, and road test results. It’s not because Subaru’s spent years fully redesigning and reinventing itself with ground breaking new tech, it’s because it’s been sticking to the same recipe: consistency. Subaru’s reliability is further compounded by keeping existing hardware and using it in different model years in order to minimize the risk of a new issue cropping up, according to Steven Elek, head of Consumer Reports’ car data analytics program.
Subaru’s six out of seven vehicles evaluated average or better in reliability, with the only dark horse being the Solterra EV, co-developed with Toyota. Lexus and Toyota rated out at an average reliability score of 65 and 62, respectively, while Subaru came in solidly behind with an average score of 68 out of 100. Underwhelming performance for the Tacoma, Tundra and the all-electric bZ4X SUV helped sully Toyota’s decline.
It is interesting to see the 2024 rankings also include a spike of representations of electric vehicles (EV). EV reliability, however, is still brand dependent with Subaru’s Solterra scoring below average.
At the same time, American automakers had difficulties, with Jeep (33), GMC (33) and Cadillac (27) least reliable brands. In the other hand, some models such as the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Trailblazer ended up scoring above average.
Consumer Reports knocked BMW out of the top spot for overall brand rankings, giving the crown to Subaru’s reliability triumph. Audi rose from 12th to sixth place and Infiniti from 16th to 10th place.
